Am I crazy or could the answer to most of the worlds problems be a corporation that aims to make people happier?

I've been thinking about this for about 8 years and I feel like your books help build a case for my idea, but I fear I'm just seeing what I want to see. I'd really appreciate it if you could give me your thoughts on this, because if I'm way off I'd like to know sooner than later.

Based on your books it seems like human flourishing goes up as we learn to cooperate more, happiness doesn't come from things, but from relationships, and that if you want something done well you need a corporation to do it. So if we could leverage the power of a corporation to create a simple, safe and efficient framework for cooperating, could it provide a scalable framework to get us on huge teams working together to solve problems more efficiently?

The way I'm thinking to do this would be for the corporation not to make money by selling us things, but to make money by saving us money. We already see this model in insurance brokers, or even Costco or Groupon. Just imagine we had single interface/company that could provide solutions for every aspect of your life, and were aiming for a happiness goal rather than a monetary goal, and were owned by the employees so the solutions were high quality rather than high profit margin.

My initial thoughts have it looking like a hybrid employment agency/army/co-op/life coach. The goal of the corporation is the happiness of the employees. People sign up like joining the army, they take some tests, do some basic happiness training, (army), then they either keep their job or try to find a new job and part of their wages go to the corp (employment agency), and the money they put into the corporation helps pay for the services and seek new more efficient ways to make people happy. To try to overcome the forced wealth distribution concerns, I think people would need to be given the power to decide how the majority of the money they bring in gets used (possibly done through the issuance of shares in the company). The whole while they are getting help from a life coach type of person or interface which helps them make better decisions through the use of tracking past experiences of the individual and the group (maximize the happiness:cost ratio).The goal is to flip things from us vs. the corporation, to have the corporation working for us.

I could go on forever, but I'll leave it at that for now.

Please let me know what you think, especially if I'm out to lunch.

Sincerely,

Spontaneous Cooperation Guy

***Update 1***

Dear SCG:if companies devoted themselves to making their employees happier, it would indeed solve many problems and make the world happier. And if pigs had wings, and strong muscles, they would be able to fly. In the business world, the most forceful case ever made for the purpose of a corporation is to increase shareholder value, as Milton Friedman put it. The challenge that many of us face who think about business, or teach business ethics, is to shift thinking away from that, to a stakeholder view, in which employees matter at least a little bit, even if shareholders matter more. I don't think we could ever get to your view, and if we did, i don't think it would be economically viable. Friedman is at least partially correct.

best wishes,jon haidt

[feel free to post this on the open letter page]

***My reply***

Thank you so much for your reply, I really appreciate you taking the time so I'll try to keep this response brief.I fully agree with the need to increase shareholder value, and intended that to be the focus of my corporation. My idea kind of merges shareholders, employees and customers all together, and it probably would've helped if I had not used the term employee. Let me try one more time focusing on the shareholder.

People would invest in the company in the hopes that it returns value to them. The value would include shares in the company but the dividends would be non-monetary, individually tailored value. The corporation would be using all of the assets towards providing non-monetary value (happiness) to the shareholders. The business success would depend on finding efficient ways for people to be happy so it could attract more investors and find even more efficient ways to make people happy. Some solutions would need to be provided as pay per use services to shareholders in order to generate income and attract new investors, and some could be available to the public if profitable.

I think the key to our global success is finding more efficient ways for people to be happy because if we don't there will be increasing conflict between nations as resources deplete. Current corporations could eventually provide these new solutions I just think a corporation trying this new business model might get us there quicker and potentially prevent a lot of unnecessary deprivation.

Am I doing any better, maybe in the realm of pigs that walk on two legs and use tools?

Sincerely,SCG

***Another Reply***

SCG,definitely better.But now it seems as though you are describing many existing companies. All companies (except for a few predatory ones) are trying to make things that people want.PIxar has found a fantastic way to make people happy, and so people pay for its movies.A chain of massage therapists... same thing.I think companies DO try to make customers happy. Mostly thru making material stuff, but some of them manufacture experiences, or solve other problems. A free market economy is open to the companies you envision; if they can make people better off, people will pay for their services. what else are you proposing? what legal changes?

jon

***I tried again***

You're right, there are many companies which focus on the promise of happiness for the consumer and the monetary gain of the investor, but I think this can create a conflict of interest. What I'm proposing is a company which tries to provide a measurable gain in happiness for both the consumers and the investor in order to eliminate the conflict of interest.

If a corporation is bound to provide as much 'benefit' as possible to the investors, and the only form 'benefit' is allowed to take is monetary, corporations could understandably rationalize less than ethical practices, possibly deceiving or even stealing from governments/suppliers/competitors or even customers if the reward outweighs to penalty. If a case could be made for a corporation to try substituting happiness for money as the way in which they provide benefit to their investors I think it could change things dramatically because the company would be providing the same or similar things to both the consumer and investor, and they would influence many if not all of the decisions made by those people.

I can't think of an existing corporation where this would be easy to apply, so that's why I was proposing the new corporation, think of it as a "Happiness Service Provider".

Given the fact that happiness is not necessarily expensive to acquire, and it is what we are all using the majority of our resources to pursue, it shouldn't be too hard to find clients and provide a high quality service with a healthy profit margin.

The reason I think this could almost be the 'panacea' for many of the world's problems is that I think most of the barriers to implementing existing solutions stem from people doing what they think will make them happier (hoard money and resources) rather than what would make them happier (share resources in mutually beneficial ways). And this is understandably done out of fear of being taken advantage of, and based on a strong track record of this leading to prosperity. But if someone could show that a 'happiness' payout to the investor is provides more benefit than money I think it could spread quickly.

As you said, the market is open for a company to try to get people to pay for this service. At this point I don't think there are any laws which need to be changed, but there might be regarding the way 'benefit' is determined. What I'm wondering is if you think there is anything innovative about this idea, or if there are any significant flaws?

Thanks again,

***I think he's given up on me, but it was great to get some feedback. Jon if you ever read this, thanks for taking the time.***

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